a.
1. Disordered in the head; giddy, delirious. † Of a fever: Characterized by delirium.
1537[?]. Latimer, Lett., in Serm. & Rem. (Parker Soc.), 391. I am light-headed for lack of sleep.
1603. North’s Plutarch (1612), 1204. If they be light headed and distraught of their wits.
1663. Pepys, Diary, 31 Oct. The Queene continues light-headed, but in hopes to recover.
1747. Mem. Nutrebian Crt., I. v. 89. I was carried home senseless and extremely bruised, which caused me to fall into a light-headed fever.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., I. I. 234. Some … were sore afeard That she had grown light-headed with her woe.
2. Of persons and their actions: Frivolous, injudicious, thoughtless; changeful, fickle.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, J. Cæsar (1595), 764. These … were speaches fitter for a rash light headed youth, then for his [Cæsar’s] Person.
1590. R. Hichcock, Quintess. Wit, 89. He is ouer-light-headed, to change himselfe firste into one parte, then into another.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., IX. 388. He was no suppressour of the subiects … to inrich light-headed flatterers.
a. 1674. Clarendon, Hist. Reb., XIV. § 120. A light-headed Nuntio, who did much mischief to his Majesty’s service.
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 144. The poor light-headed cicada-swarm of a Chorus.
1864. Burton, Scot. Abr., I. iii. 144. Such thoughts were in the meantime counteracted by the light-headed doings of the Queen Dowager.
† 3. quasi-adv. Obs.
1639. Fuller, Holy War, I. v. (1640), 6. We see how light-headed this Pagan did talk, being stark drunk with pride.
Hence Light-headedly adv., Light-headedness.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1754), 187. Diliriums, and what we call Lightheadedness.
1813. L. Hunt, in Examiner, 31 May, 350/1. A fit of religious light-headedness.
1817. Coleridge, Biog. Lit., 291. A sort of intermittent fever with fits of light-headedness off and on.
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxiv. As to lightheadedness, there never was such a feather of a head as mine.
1886. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll, x. (ed. 2), 128. Gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future.
